Thelateral nasal click is aclick consonant found primarily among thelanguages of southernAfrica. The symbol in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet for a nasal lateral click with avelar rear articulation is ⟨ŋ͡ǁ⟩ or ⟨ŋ͜ǁ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨ŋǁ⟩, ⟨ᵑǁ⟩ or ⟨ǁ̃⟩; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some linguists is ⟨ŋ͡ʖ⟩ or ⟨ŋ͜ʖ⟩, abbreviated ⟨ŋʖ⟩, ⟨ᵑʖ⟩ or ⟨ʖ̃⟩. For a click with auvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨ɴ͡ǁ,ɴ͜ǁ,ɴǁ,ᶰǁ⟩ and ⟨ɴ͡ʖ,ɴ͜ʖ,ɴʖ,ᶰʖ⟩.Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǁŋ⟩ or ⟨ǁᵑ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or it may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.^[1]

Features of the lateral nasal click:

• Theairstream mechanism islingual ingressive (also known as velaric ingressive), which means a pocket of air trapped between two closures is rarefied by a "sucking" action of the tongue, rather than being moved by theglottis or thelungs/diaphragm. The release of the forward closure produces the "click" sound. Voiced and nasal clicks have a simultaneouspulmonic egressive airstream.
• Itsphonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is anasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth.
• It is alateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.

Lateral nasal clicks are found primarily in the variousKhoisan language families of southern Africa and in some neighboringBantu languages.^[2][3]

AllKhoisan languages, and a few Bantu languages, have glottalized nasal clicks. These are formed by closing theglottis so that the click is pronounced in silence; however, any preceding vowel will be nasalized.

• Nasal consonants
• Click consonants
• Lateral consonants
• Voiced consonants

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